Knock Knock
by shadowhuntingdauntlessdemigod
Summary: Tag to 15x01. Dean is very young when he learns that his most hated thing in the world is seeing Sammy in pain.


So this started as a tag to 15x01 (my favorite two minutes from the season so far being this one scene) and ended up becoming an amalgamation of a bunch of different h/c scenes from various seasons. I hope you guys enjoy! *also cross-posted over on AO3, same user and everything*

I don't own anything. Any recognizable lines belong to the writers and the show, obviously, though I tried not to use them word for word.

* * *

Dean is very young when he learns that his most hated thing in the world is seeing Sammy in pain. He carries that feeling, opinion, sentiment, with him and it doesn't take long for it to turn into his job that he'll do his absolute best at for the rest of his life.

When he's four, he doesn't quite understand why babies cry so much. Mary tries to explain that they do when they're hungry or sleepy or sometimes not for much of a reason at all. She's good at soothing baby Sam, but Dean still hates seeing him cry, tears rolling down the side of his smooth face, toothless mouth open and begging for whatever he wants but can't get.

Dean doesn't understand why Sammy does it, but he doesn't like it. Sometimes, if John is at the garage and Mary is working in the yard, Sammy will start crying from his crib. Dean figures out that he can stand on the edge of the crib and stretch his hand in to smooth down Sam's clothes or pat his soft hair.

It's uncoordinated at worst, but works wonders at best. Sometimes Dean even gets a smile out of Sam for his efforts.

Sam's smiles are much better than his about to cry face or his actual tears.

And Dean decides right then and there, barely four and a half years old, that he wants to see Sam cry as little as possible. And if Sam does, he will do his best to make it better.

Awkward pats and funny faces only work so long, though.

Sam is five when he skins his knee. Childhood can often be told in an anthology of skinned knees and elbows, and Sam was no exception, but this one is worse. It happened on the asphalt of their most recent motel, where the road hadn't been resurfaced in much too long.

John takes care of the bandaging, Dean watching over his shoulder as instructed. Sam does his best to hold in his tears, but his shoulders shake all the same as John cleans the large patch of skin and gingerly presses a bandage onto it. He shows Dean how to clean and change it later, but he doesn't have the best handle on how to get off a bandaid painlessly, as if there's a way, and it's a big one, and Sam just about screams when it comes off.

Dean vows to do better.

John has to leave for two days after that on a job. He gives instructions, leaves money and some food, and heads out the door. Before bed on the first night, Sam just about refuses to have the bandaid taken off.

"Nuh uh, it'll hurt, it's okay on," he's sitting on the bed and shaking his head, eyes trained on the floor.

"Sammy, you don't want it to get infected, that'll hurt even worse. I'll be gentle, I promise."

Sam's old enough to know his brother means promises when he says them, and young enough to believe that they'll hold up for the rest of his life.

After a few more words back and forth, Sam's seated on the closed toilet lid in the bathroom with Dean squatted next to him, med kit open. Sam's eyes are already red, just from anticipation of what's coming. He doesn't hide it as much with Dean, he knows he doesn't have to, doesn't have to pretend to be older than he is or suck up pain that he doesn't know what to do with.

Dean sees the anticipation a mile away and knows that it's more damaging than any sticky gauze could ever be. If only smiles came so easily.

"Knock knock," he says offhandedly, as an idea while he gets the materials ready.

Sam looks at him quizzically.

Dean waves his hand, new bandage in it. "C'mon, Sammy, knock knock? You gonna answer?"

Sam's not quite sure where it's going, but his mouth quirks up in a bit of a smile. "Who's there?"

"A door."

"Adore who?"

"There's one between us, what took you so long to open up?"

Sam quickly gets the play on words, and right as he does, his mouth stretches into the smile that Dean loves with every fiber of his being.

"Do another one!" Sam requests excitedly, as if Dean needs any more encouragement.

He goes through three more rounds, his hands resting gently on Sam's knee, until Sam's more focused on him than on the impending reveal of his injury.

"And do you know why it crossed the road?"

Sam's even giggling now, and Dean takes the opportunity to strip off the bandaid as painlessly as he can, clean, and begin to redress the area. Sam's giggling takes a break for a few breaths, but he still follows up, eyes searching his big brother's face for the answer. "No, why?"

"Cuz it was Thanksgiving."

Sam squints his eyes, trying to figure it out. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Doesn't have to, you liked it, you know you did."

By that time, Sam's knee is bandaged, and Dean counts the diversion as a definite win in his book.

That seems to do it for Sam. His small shoulders shrug, content with the answer, and he nods. "It was okay."

Dean begins to pack up the kit, still squatting in front of Sam. He gets only a few things put away before he's basically tackled from the front and has to put a hand back to not completely fall over. Sam's stood up, arms around Dean's chest, face in the crook of his neck. "Thanks, De."

Dean uses the hand that isn't holding himself up to wrap around Sam's back. "Anytime, Sammy, anytime." And he means it. Besides, the smile on his own face is worth it.

.

The jokes turn and mature as the brothers do, from bandages and chickens to stitches and strippers to hospitals and whatever comedy movie Dean's seen most recently. He doesn't get as many laughs of hugs anymore, but Sam's never asked him to stop, and Dean's not about to fix up his brother, sometimes causing him more pain in the process, and be silent all the way through.

He once read somewhere that comedy was a way of covering for emotional hurt and building up walls and some other crap like that. Shrinks were paid too much anyway, so he didn't give it much mind.

But jokes don't just go with bandaids anymore.

They go with life or death situations, arguments between Sam and John, or whatever nerdy science project Sam's always working on.

They fill the space created between two brothers standing at a bus station, one with a backpack on, the other trying to not jam him back in the car and take off in the opposite direction.

"And I'm serious, college girls man, you see any that are a solid twelve, you call me, alright? I'll be there before you can even hang up."

_If you need anything, anything at all, I'll drop everything and come get you._

"Glad to see you've got your priorities in order."

_I know I'm still at the top of the list. _

Somewhere along the line Sam picked up the 'humor as a defense mechanism' thing too. But not as much as Dean. Never as much as Dean.

He plasters on a smile, yeah, he's fine his brother's leaving and settling to try for a normal life. He's proud of him, really, and he tells Sam that more than once, and he jokes so the bandaid hurts less while coming off.

Sam's leaving, he's going somewhere both Dean and John can't protect him, and there's something broken in the family that's getting left behind. But in this case, the bandaid is Dean's own reaction to Sam leaving. Him making it known how hard it is would only make it harder on Sam, which violates Dean's own number one rule for being.

So he claps Sam on the shoulder, says he stashed some 'goodies' in his brother's bag, and relishes the blush that creeps onto Sam's cheeks.

It's not a hug and a smile, but it's something.

Later, after the bus is less than taillights in the distance bound for the west coast, he'll rip the bandaid off with the help of some whiskey.

.

"I'm gonna take care of you. I've got you. That's my job, right? Watch after my pain in the ass little brother?"

His halfhearted joking can't fix a severed spinal cord, and he knows it.

But what's that people say about old habits? Something too on the nose regarding what Sam's currently doing in his arms.

.

"I'm the only one who can legitimately kick your ass in real time!"

He's going to need more than a bandaid for this mess. Maybe a mile of gauze would do it, enough to wrap Sam up so tight the hell memories and hallucinations stop leaking out.

There's no way to make this easier for Sam, no way to immediately get rid of the pain. The pain is Lucifer, and he's inside Sam's head, mostly because of a choice Dean made for his brother. So a lot of this, it's on him. And it's killing him that he can't lessen it or make it better.

The only thing he can do is shoot him a wobbly smile, beg, grab, and squeeze his little brother's hand, hoping to remind him that he's Dean's number one purpose and Dean's his stone number one.

The words work as a sort of bandaid, at least, to get them moving again, but it's just a matter of time before the sticky elastic fails and the other shoe tumbles to the ground.

.

"Want me to do the whole airplane thing with the spoon?"

Dean waves around the spoon for good measure. He'll do it, honestly. Sam's sitting in front of him, blanket around his shoulders, looking absolutely miserable, more so than even the past few days.

And all Dean can think is that it was supposed to be him doing this so Sam wouldn't have to. But here he is, doing all he can, cooking soup and making stupid jokes, all the while knowing that Sam can get through it to the finish line, but not without a whole lot of pain first.

So if Dean can't do the trials himself, he'll at least do what he was meant to do: make them less awful for his brother.

.

"So what did you do? When you thought I was dead?"

Honestly, what does Sam expect him to say? That he was fine, that he'd move on, that it was just an average rest of the day? The only reason he'd left Sam behind was because he thought he'd been dead. And Sam knows it. He asks the question a bit jokingly now, because everything turned out alright, but there's some worry there too, making sure his brother's okay.

Dean's certainly not about to divulge what went down on his end only a few hours ago. It'll probably come out eventually, but certainly not now.

Both of them dying in one day is just a bit too much for Dean's plate. He knew Sam wasn't dead, is what he goes with, even though they both know it's a lie. "Thought about redecorating your room. You know, jacuzzi, disco ball, give it some class, the whole nine yards."

Sam scoffs, and while it's not a smile, it's also not him lying slack-jawed, bleeding out, and practically dead on the floor. Dean counts that as a win.

.

Dean's been gone almost a month. That much time, strapped to an archangel, with no control over his movements, all to have it suddenly end. It's scary and disorienting as all hell and he still doesn't really know why Michael left. That's scaring him more than anything else. He's not about to admit it though, certainly not in front of Mary and Bobby.

When he and Sam finally get to be alone, walking down the hallway in their home, he really sees the beard on Sam's face and the circles under his eyes and the way his flannel hangs off him a bit more than it used to. It doesn't take a genius to know that Sam hasn't been taking care of himself.

He's been in pain for the past few weeks, and Dean hasn't been able to do a thing about it. Of course, he was fighting Michael with every fiber of his possessed being to get back to Sam, but that hadn't done much good.

He may still be figuring his own head back out, and getting back to his purpose is a good way to cement himself in the here and now. He's back where he belongs, watching out for Sam, and that's plenty to hold onto until the rest works itself out.

So of course, he makes fun of Sam's full on beard, Sam scoffs, and then asks if Dean's really okay. What else is there to say other than yeah?

Back to business as usual, and he's okay with that.

.

Dean's lost count of how many times the world has almost ended. This time is a little different, though, considering that the creator of all things is currently trying to destroy all things.

Chuck may have changed a lot, but he sure as hell hasn't changed that promise Dean made all those lifetimes ago. Something like that, so ingrained, can't be written in some book, and he knows it. What he and Sam have, that's theirs, and nothing that Chuck tries to do will change that.

So he triages Sam like always, a bit ticked that Sam didn't mention the wound sooner, but then again it's just like his little brother to do so. It still needs cleaning, though. The world's falling down around them, a lot of the good work they did has been somewhat undone, and Sam just went toe to toe with another clown.

He could really use a smile.

So could Dean.

So he falls back on the oldest trick in the book. "Knock knock, come on, knock knock." Sam rolls his eyes halfheartedly as Dean says it, but still plays along, and halfway through the question, Dean presses a pad to the gunshot wound. Sam still winces, but there's a hint of a smile on his face.

After all, it's harder to distract his overgrown brother from a bullet wound than it was a five year old from a scraped knee. But Dean does his best. He's had a lifetime of practice, after all.

It can't distract either of them from the state of the world though, or how their free will that they fought so hard to keep, could have all just been a maze. But while Dean's the best at distracting with comedy to lessen whatever pain Sam may be going through, Sam's always had a bit of a step up when it comes to logical reassurances. Figures, the kid got into Stanford with a full ride, after all.

"It meant a lot, everything we've done. We still saved people."

And in the end, that's what matters. Another apocalypse, another round of people to save, they've done this song and dance before and know it as well as they do their own pistols. Chuck couldn't manipulate something like that, that was all them.

Coming from anyone else, it may have sounded hollow, but not from Sam. Dean looks at him, really looks, and sees nothing but conviction and belief in his eyes. He's been through it with Dean, _everything _with Dean. He knows the people they've lost and the ones they've saved.

"I mean, yeah, maybe they'll die eventually, but so does everyone, right? But we gave them, hundreds of people, at least, the world at most, more time to spend with the people they care about."

There it is, addressing Dean's biggest doubt and knocking it down like a house of cards that just folds under the weight. The cards and doubts are still there, of course, but not in the same fashion.

They're both a mess of bullet wounds and mental scars after so many years of fighting the same battles. But they fought them together, that's what matters, and they'll end this one the same way: putting bandaids and jokes over things they can't quite fix, and working until they find something they can.


End file.
